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In August 1843, the frigate United States, flagship of the Pacific Squadron, stopped at Honolulu and while there signed on several three-year enlistees. One of the new men was named Herman Melville, Muster #572, later destined to write a book which became an American classic, Moby Dick.
The brooding symbolism and Shakespearean diction of Moby Dick with its strange tale of Captain Ahab’s obsessive chase of the great white whale was not in 1843 a part of Melville’s literary temperament. When he shipped on board the United States, he was 24 years old and in the prime of his young manhood. He had almost two years of South Sea adventure behind him, stories of which would soon appear in the novels Typee and Omoo, that were to make him a best-selling author by the end of 1848. But to his messmates in the United States, he was just a young sailor with a lively, impressionable mind, the freedom- loving temperament of the artist, and the ability to read and write, which last, of course, set him considerably apart from the general run of bluejackets of that era.
The United States left Honolulu, cruised to Nukuhiva and Callao, thence ’round Cape Horn to Rio, and finally to her home port of Boston, where Melville was discharged along with the rest of the crew in October 1844. Shortly afterward, he sat down and wrote a fictional account of his experiences on board the United States, which was published in 1849 as White Jacket; or The World in a Man-of-War.
White Jacket was written in a satiric ' el The frigate described in the book is called 1 ^ Neversink; she is commanded by Capta Claret, an officer renowned more for his c01' sumption of alcohol than for his seamansW
Melville, had the journalist’s keen eye ^ detail of incident and environment, howe' ’ and the reader learns much about daily ll^_ on board a typical naval vessel of the time she cruised the Pacific station. ^
Melville was assigned to the starboar watch as a maintopman. The topmen c0l|s sidered themselves the aristocracy of the sh'P company. Of his duty station, Melville write
. . . the tops of a frigate are quite spacious and cozy. They are railed in behind so as to fornj a kind of balcony, very pleasant of a tropic® night. From twenty to thirty loungers ®ay agreeably recline there, cushioning them selves on old sails and jackets ....
He describes in detail the divisions of 1_ crew, beginning with the officers, and co* tinuing through the midshipmen (the ll£l tenants’ errand-boys), topmen, waist*-, (green hands, or old or physically ha» capped sailors whose duties were confined the waist or midships), carpenters and sa‘ makers, the grim, mysterious gunner and 1 mates, and the sheet-anchor men.
... an old, weatherbeaten set . . . the fcllo"'8 who spin interminable yarns about Decatur, Hull, and Bainbridge . . . and carry about their persons bits of “Old Ironsides,” 28 Catholics do the wood of the true cross . • •
Almost the only man on board who enj0',’ a sympathetic characterization at MelviUe> hands is Jack Chase, Captain of the Maintop^ The actual muster-rolls of the United States this time record a “John J. Chase” in rating, and contemporary accounts held h1' to be a capable, veteran seaman, much rC spected by both officers and men.
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Melville dramatizes Jack’s seamanship “ an incident startlingly similar to the typho01 scene of Herman Wouk’s famous World Wa II novel, The Caine Mutiny. The Never si’ caught in a Cape Horn gale, is in dire stra> as her topsails go by the board in heavy sea8’ Jack Chase has “taken the trumpet”—in ef : feet, taken over command—from the offi0^ of the deck, and is shouting directions throng it to the men aloft. Captain Claret comnian 5
the hpir>,
tUr roismen to put the helm hard down, to u . he ship awav from the wind and run
a the sale- '
3tl(.| ase countermands the Captain’s order, fjj < s the helmsmen to put up the helm. SenseStraining men at the great double-wheels ancj6 /^ht Chase’s direction is the sounder, sea turn the ship’s head into wind and Nand successfully ride out the gale.
Out CXt a^ter the storm has blown itself sh and the Neversink is getting herself ship- (ju 5 again, the Captain chooses to ignore ,e s roost serious breach of discipline, g to the crew’s (and Melville’s) delight. iyeeatlng to quarters and battle drill were f)a occurrences. The United States was a altL ’P> after all, and carried a commodore, \Vas°uSd according to Melville, that officer
Melville
describes a battle drill, telling
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apDrarely seen out of his cabin. When he did re|ajar t° stroll the quarterdeck, the author niecjes ^at a strange silence befell the im- verste vicinity, and there would be a uni- Pos'.j* shifting of the watch officers to the op- rn0cjC Slde °P the ship. Apparently, the com- aVo ?re Was little more than a conspicuously y. ^ Passenger on board his own flagship. ^ vdle’s official battle station was at gun b0a . " a 32-pound carronade on the star'll u (luarterdeck. The gun was named ^ ®et” by its crew, and Melville’s duties of k. to ram and sponge. In the book, he says nis station:
re ' t did not fancy this station at all . . . the areSoa's that the officers of the highest rank ^ lere stationed [on the quarterdeck], and taenemy have an ungentlemanly way of a /?et'si10°ting at their buttons . . . ours was j a8s"ip, and everyone knows what a . . .
, Vt aStrous predicament the quarterdeck of garSon s flagship was in at the battle of Trafal-
°Ut:
ttta gunner . . . burrowing down in the jj§azine, under the wardroom, which is glated by battle-lanterns, placed behind glass bullseyes inserted in the bulkhead, and Povvcicr monkeys,” or boys, who fetch fro Carry cartridges, are scampering to and rtta am°ng tfle guns . . . the entrance to the «< Sazine on the berthdeck, where the gu°Wcier monkeys” procure their food for the > ls guarded by a wooden screen ... a ner’s mate standing behind it, thrusts out
The Old Navy 153
the cartridges through a small arm-hole in the screen ....
We learn an interesting detail concerning battle dress:
. . . the officers generally fight as dandies dance, namely, in silk stockings, inasmuch as, in the case of being wounded in the leg, the silk hose can be more easily drawn off by the surgeon . . . cotton sticks, and works into the wound ....
We also learn about a delectable dish called “dunderfunk,” a kind of pie made of crumbled ships’ biscuit, salt pork cuttings, fat, and any other tidbits which could be scrounged from among the mess leftovers. The pie was then baked by the ship’s cook whenever he could be prevailed upon to make a place for it at the back of his oven.
Melville was less lighthearted when describing the many incidents of punishment under the Articles of War. Flogging was the chief method of naval punishment at the time. Although the legal limit was only 12 lashes per sentence, the sharp-edged thongs of the “cat” in the hands of husky boatswain’s mate would lay low an able-bodied man for several days. Melville, during his 14 months on board the United States, witnessed 163 floggings for offenses varying from insubordination to fighting. Incensed at the practice, he devotes more than ten out of 93 chapters to arguments in support of the abolishment of flogging in the Navy.
The publication of White Jacket in 1849 coincided with a movement in the U. S. Congress to abolish flogging in the Navy. One congressman even suggested that a copy of Melville’s book be placed on every desk of both houses as eloquent first-hand testimony against the evils of the “cat.” There is no doubt that the book added some weight to the other influences which eventually resulted in successful legislation abolishing forever the practice of flogging in the U. S. Navy.
The book’s over-all judgment, however, goes easy on the captain of the Neversink. In one of the closing chapters, Melville comments that Captain Claret is a generally fair and humane commander in comparison with what most seamen of the time considered to be the Fleet average.